Moral Compass.
The word limit for this assignment is 1500 words.
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your TMA before the submission deadline.
This tutor-marked assignment comprises ONE (1) 1500-word essay which is worth 30% of
the final mark for SSC111e The Moral Compass.
Please upload this assignment to Turnitin by Sunday, 5 October 2014, 11.59pm.
Resubmissions are allowed before this cut-off time.
Remember to provide proper citations and referencing in your essay. Please note that 10% of
your grade can be deducted for lack of language proficiency and inadequate citations
and referencing.
Read the following synopsis of the film, Unfaithful, carefully and answer BOTH the
following questions.
UNFAITHFUL
(Film, 2002. Based on the 1968 French Film La Femme Infidèle by Claude Chabrol)
Adrian Lyne (Director)
Alvin Sargent & William Broyles Jr (Screenwriters)
Connie and Edward Sumner is a middle-aged couple who live in the outskirts of New York
City. They have a strong and loving marriage but they lack intimacy. One day, Connie travels
to the city where she falls and scrapes her knees when bumping into Paul Martel, a French
used-books dealer. Paul offers to let her use his apartment to clean up. There, Paul makes
advances towards her and Connie becomes uncomfortable and leaves. Before she leaves, Paul
gifts Connie a famous book of Persian poetry. The next morning, she visits Paul’s apartment
where they share coffee and discuss literature, but gets scared and leaves when Paul makes
advances towards her again. However, Connie is unable to stop thinking of Paul and she
returns to his place a third time; after some initial hesitance on her part, she succumbs to her
desires and begins a passionate extra-marital affair with Paul.
Edward soon suspects something with Connie visiting the city frequently. When checking
with mutual friends, Edward discovers inconsistencies in her stories about her involvement in
a charity event in the city. Eventually, Edward’s suspicions are confirmed when one of his
business partners sees Connie and Paul romancing each other in a café. Still in disbelief,
Edward hires a detective to follow Connie and is devastated when the private detective
produces photographic evidence of Paul and Connie’s affair.
Connie subsequently finds out that Paul has been unfaithful to her and they fight over his
infidelity but the fight soon turns into yet another passionate encounter. As she leaves, an
upset Edward decides to confront Paul at his apartment but narrowly misses seeing Connie
there. Instead, he is shocked to see a snow-globe which he recognises as his anniversary gift
to Connie. When Paul says that the snow-globe was a gift from Connie, an enraged Edward
beats Paul with the snow-globe, killing him. Edward then cleans up the blood, wipes away his
fingerprints and wraps Paul’s body in a rug. As he is leaving with Paul’s body, he hears
Connie’s voice message on Paul’s answering machine, saying that she must end the affair.
Edward erases Connie’s voice message and disposes Paul’s body in a dump.
SSC111e Tutor-Marked Assignment 01 July 2014 Semester
Later, two police detectives visit Edward and Connie’s home. They explain that Paul’s
estranged wife had reported him missing and traced Connie using her phone number that was
found in Paul’s apartment. Connie lies and claims that she had met Paul only once. A week
later, the police return to inform Connie that Paul’s body has been found. Connie gets upset
and repeats her lie; Edward also backs up her lie by adding that he has never met Paul. Later
that night, Connie discovers the private detective’s photos of her and Paul and realises that
Edward has been aware of her extra-marital affair all along. When she notices that the snow-globe is back in her own home, she concludes that Edward was the one who
murdered Paul.
Edward and Connie confront each other for their crimes and he offers to turn himself in to the
Police. Connie rejects Edward’s suggestion and insists they will get through this crisis
together. Connie and Edward try to move on but are undecided if they should move to
another city with new identities or if they should go to the Police. They eventually head to the
Police but it is not known what transpires there.
Question 1
With reference to the above scenario, define the concept of extra-marital affairs and explain
in detail if Connie’s affair is morally justified. In your answer, you should use a Confucian
and Kantian framework.
(50 marks)
Question 2
Edward and Connie are in a loving marriage but both of them have betrayed each other’s trust
and have committed moral wrongdoing. Compare and contrast their actions and assess
whether Edward or Connie have committed a greater moral wrongdoing or both are equally at
fault. In your assessment, you should use a utilitarian framework.
(50 marks)
Students’ Notes
Answering this TMA affords you an opportunity to relate the scenario to course concepts
found in Study Units 2 through 5.
Question 1 requires you to examine Connie’s decision to have an extra-marital affair with
Paul and assess if it is morally justified by assessing against Confucian virtue ethics and
Kantian principles.
Question 2 requires you to draw morally relevant comparisons between Edward’s and
Connie’s actions and explain why Edward or Connie is either of equal moral culpability (i.e.
they were all equally wrong) or of unequal moral culpability [i.e. some (or one) committed a
greater moral wrong than the other (or others)] using the theoretical framework for support.
In your answer, you should weigh their actions against each other and assess how much harm
or how much good their actions cause.
General Remarks
1) No research outside of the course
material is expected of you.
2) Do not (purely) use your own opinion to provide
responses. Explicitly use the moral reasoning concepts and moral-ethical
frameworks to describe and analyse the scenario, formulate arguments, and draw
and explain your conclusions.
Question 1
1) Do not allocate too much of the maximum word
count allocation defining the “concept of extra-marital affairs”. You are not
expected to research the concept and provide any definitive definition. Briefly
discuss the concept first generically and then try to use material from the
course to explain the moral significance of the concept (i.e. How can we
understand the concept from a moral perspective? From whose moral perspective?
Why do we even consider the concept a moral issue? How can we think about the
concept using approaches to moral reasoning?).
2) Each of the moral-ethical frameworks covered
in Weeks 2, 3 and 4 have their own way of resolving moral dilemmas by determining
what is morally permissible/justified/sanctioned (i.e. moral – what society
should allow) and what is not morally permissible/justified/sanctioned (i.e.
immoral – what society should prohibit).
Question 2
1) By “moral wrongdoing” what is meant is
the commission of an act that is deemed not morally permissible/justified/sanctioned
(i.e. immoral – what society should prohibit).
2) “Compare” refers to highlighting
similarities.
3) “Contrast” refers to highlighting differences.
4) Draw and explain your conclusion as to
whose actions are less morally permissible/justified/sanctioned/pardonable (i.e.
more morally reprehensible – more unpardonable). Meaning that some moral-ethical
frameworks deem there to be a range to what is considered moral/immoral (i.e. moral
and immoral are not fixed, self-contained categories, but rather there are
extents to how much an act is considered moral/immoral).
Here are some pointers on tackling the assignment:
1) You must demonstrate to the assessor their comprehension of the course material by explicitly applying knowledge gained from the course material in their assignment
responses. You must base/ground/frame/present/express your responses in the terms of the course material. Your arguments, ideas and opinions must always refer back to
specific aspects of the course material. If this is not done, it would be more difficult for the assessor to ascertain whether you have indeed absorbed in the material
taught in the course.
2) Also always base/ground/frame/present/express your responses to the questions in terms of the facts provided and discovered through research. You must make explicit
reference to the details of the scenario depicted in the film synopsis. You must muster specific details of the scenario in substantiating your arguments and
conclusions. Your analyses must be both conceptual/theoretical and as well as factual. You must provide the factual proof.
3) If you are not certain how to begin applying the course material to drafting a response to the questions, do things in reverse order by first reviewing all the
material you have learnt leading up to the submission deadline. Then think how the material learnt would fit into the contemplation/scope/objective of each question,
as the crafter of the questions must have had certain responses in mind already when crafting the questions.
4) Before you even begin subjecting an action to moral analysis (i.e. contemplating about the morality or immorality of an action), you must first ascertain whether an
action can be subject to such moral analysis (i.e. Is there a moral dilemma?) If there is no moral dilemma, then there would be no use for moral analysis. How would
you determine whether an issue is a moral one? How would you justify this? Is something a moral issue in a universally-regarded way, or is the issue subject to
relativistic interpretations (i.e. to some it is a moral issue but to others it is not).
5) If there is a moral issue at hand, you must first be certain about what the content of the issue is (i.e. what should form part of the moral analysis?). What is the
scope of any moral analysis? What are the morally relevant considerations/factors? Each moral-ethical framework has its limits in hosting/subsuming
considerations/factors within its framework/contemplation, such that considerations/factors falling outside of the framework/contemplation would not be deemed a
morally relevant consideration/factor (i.e. not part of the moral issue).
6) Each of the moral-ethical frameworks covered up to the submission deadline (i.e. Consequentialism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics) has its own way of determining what
is to be considered a morally relevant consideration/factor (i.e. whether there is a moral issue in existence), how morality should be analysed (i.e. the methods of
moral analysis), and how morality can be measured (i.e. what standard should be used to determining the extent/level of morality). Tying back to point 3 above, a
measurement as to the extent/level of morality is also dependent on the extent of universality or relativism of an interpretation of considerations/factors of a
circumstance/scenario.
7) Bear in mind that each moral-ethical frameworks covered up to the submission deadline (i.e. Consequentialism, Deontology and Virtue Ethics) has its explanatory and
analytical strengths and limitations. The usefulness of the application of each moral-ethical framework differs under different circumstances/scenarios. Therefore,
under a certain circumstance/scenario, you must pick the most appropriate moral-ethical framework to apply to your analysis.
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